The Light of Amsterdam (16 page)

‘All right, love?' he asked, leaning his shoulder lightly into hers.

‘When they come with the drinks, get me a red wine.'

‘Do you want something to eat?'

‘No, just a glass of wine.'

He nodded and leaned his head out into the aisle as if to check the trolley's progress. She closed the magazine and tried to imagine what flower arrangements she and Judith might choose for her wedding.

 

 

It was the second time that day that a woman had touched his hand and, while ultimately neither moment had been unpleasant, both had only served to remind him of what he didn't have. He hadn't even realised until after the split how fundamental a pleasure it was to be touched by another, no matter how briefly or simply, and perhaps it was something that transcended pleasure and was rooted in a deeper need. His own touch was a poor substitute and could not compare to the fleeting brush of a stranger's skin, even if it was the subsequently embarrassed hand of someone dressed as an Indian. He knew that she had shrunk into the seat so that no part of her touched any part of him and he felt sorry for her, wanted to give himself a kind of reference to reassure her, to let her know that he wasn't a predator who would try to exchange trinkets and glass beads for her favours. But he knew, too, that he was a little dizzy, a little vulnerable in his need, and he had felt it long enough to understand that it was potentially reckless and given to unexpected and unwise actions. He remembered with a wince the hopelessly naked print of his need on the clay and how everything had seemed to spiral out from that misjudgement, so no matter how pleasant her touch had been and indeed the knowledge that they had a landing to share, he wasn't going to let himself fall into that trap again. She seemed to have hidden in a still silence so he was surprised when he heard her speak.

‘Have you been to Amsterdam before?' she asked, her head half-angled to him but her eyes looking at the seat in front.

‘A good number of times – first when I was a student, and that's not yesterday.' She spread the magazine over the bareness of her knees. ‘You've never been before?'

‘No, never.'

‘You'll like it. Everybody likes it.'

‘I have a list of all the things I'm supposed to do but I don't think I'll get to see too many of them on this trip. Are you on a holiday?'

‘We're going to see Bob Dylan in concert and look at a few paintings.'

‘Is Bob Dylan not dead?'

‘No, not yet but there mightn't be too many more opportunities.'

‘And you like paintings?'

‘I teach in the art college, for my sins, so I better say yes to that.'

It seemed that the last bit of information had silenced her and her hand smoothed the pages of the magazine as if she was ironing them. He felt a need to remove any remoteness his job might have created.

‘My father always wanted me to be a painter and decorator. He was probably right – I'd have made more money, that's for sure.'

She smiled lightly and he wanted to ask her what she did but instead he fell back into silence and tried not to think about how in a few hours Susan would be flying off to Spain with Gordon to explore the possibilities of a new life. Would Jack go with her if she managed to set herself up in some business or would he choose to stay with him? But already he knew that if he opted to stay it would only nominally be with him and that considerations other than filial affection would prompt his decision. He glanced at the back of his son's head as he pressed his face close to the window and then watched as he started to take photographs with his mobile phone.

‘What are you doing, Jack?'

‘Taking photographs.'

‘What of?'

‘Just random photos – there were some lights out there a moment ago. Might get a shot of a
UFO
.'

‘You think there might be a
UFO
out there?'

‘It's pretty likely. There's been lots of sightings this month.'

‘How do you know?'

‘There's websites log them all. Sometimes they've got photographs. If they publish your photograph they pay you.'

‘You don't think that might encourage people to fake shots?' he asked as Jack turned away from the window and, with a black slick of hair sliding over one eye, started to view the pictures he had taken.

‘Dad, this is for real, not kids' made-up stuff. These guys are experts so they're not going to be conned by half-assed pictures of Frisbees or stuff like that. Some of them have worked for the government so they know all about the cover-ups and about what goes on in places like Area 51.'

‘Area 51?' He hadn't heard his son sound so animated in a long time and even if it was some half-baked fantasy he wasn't going to rain on the parade.

‘It's a secret camp hidden in the Nevada desert where they store
UFO
s and aliens and do research on them without telling anyone.'

‘You think they have aliens there?' He did his best to make his question sound sincere but didn't manage to carry it off.

‘Yes, they do and even guys who were
NASA
astronauts know there's a cover-up. The government thinks we'd all panic or something if we knew.' He turned his head away as if he'd said more than he should have and stared out of the window again.

He didn't know what to say and what was worse he realised that he didn't know anything about what was spinning round in his son's head. Perhaps, too, the
UFO
s were his fault and he remembered the Sunday afternoon when he had been minding Jack and Caroline while Susan was making tea. They were young, sitting on the settee with him and watching
ET
, but somehow he had managed to doze off towards the end and when Susan had entered she found the two of them sitting crying at
ET
's impending death, uncomforted, while their father blissfully snored. Perhaps that was the moment aliens took up residence in his son's interior landscape. He looked at the glossy black clot of his head staring into the darkness. He had to say something, didn't want to let the moment slip away.

‘Do you think they really landed on the moon?'

Jack looked at him as if checking he was for real and his eyes widened with what was obvious disdain.

‘Of course they landed on the moon. Only complete idiots believe that it was all a con. And do you think the Russians would have let them get all that credit if it was? It's all straightforward, everybody apart from no-brainers knows the answers. The flag blowing in the wind when there isn't any wind is because it was attached to a spring which didn't open properly so it's not blowing, just crumpled. And the no-stars bit is because the camera speed couldn't record the tiny spots of light. Like you could fake it all in a studio. As if.'

As if indeed. He had been admonished if a little reassured to know that there were others out there his son considered no-brainers. It was clear that there were some conspiracies he signed up to but which ones these were and which he treated with scorn he was unable to say. It was just another of the many things he didn't know and he reflected on whether the end-product of the weekend would be to merely emphasise the absence of this knowledge. Then the lights dimmed and he settled back into his seat and wondered if the stranger on his other side would need a hand to hold when they came in to land.

Seven

He insisted on taking a taxi from Central Station although she would have been perfectly happy to catch a tram. She liked the trams, the way they surreptitiously pushed you up against the mystery of other people's lives, where you could privately observe intimacies of appearance and relationship. But although both their small cases were on wheels and didn't require much lugging he said it would be awkward getting on and off. He chatted enthusiastically to their taxi driver who told him that the weather had been very mild for that time of year and if they were lucky they might even see a bit of sun. But now it was the city's lights that held her gaze as they blurred and coalesced into a glitter of neon and Christmas decorations, a steady pulse against the eyes. The lights were pretty, crystalline, icing the streets in shivering spangles. She already sensed the quickening power of the city, its streets and squares crowded with people and not just young people, the way it would be at home on Friday night, but all ages and all ethnic backgrounds while the cafés and restaurants threw warm yellow-yolked invitations from their open doors. So much here, even in winter, was in the open and she understood this was the right place and the right time to do what it was she had decided. How would he react? She didn't know and part of her didn't care because she couldn't go on living in the shadow of uncertainty. She had a right to her life and it was the first step to making it into the shape she wanted and not having to care about what anyone else thought. And she wasn't going back to the gym, was never setting foot inside its door again, and if he wanted he could cancel the subscription and claim some of his money back.

They passed Dam Square where the lights of a giant Christmas tree trembled slightly in the breeze so it looked as if the whole tree was lightly quivering, not from cold, but rather the way a young girl newly dressed in her finery might shimmer herself to the world. She thought of the four acres of Christmas trees that they grew at home. It had been wholly her idea and she had done the research about sustainability and government grants and it pleased her to think of all the trees people had loaded into the backs of cars, how even now her trees sat in front windows dressed in their filigree and baubles. Some Sunday mornings before he had even wakened she liked to walk through the grove and smell the scent that she always associated with Christmas. And there was another thing she would have to tell him before they went home which was that they had sold their last black Christmas tree. She didn't care about profit or how many people thought they were lovely. She wasn't superstitious but it felt as if they were inviting bad luck, even some unforeseen disaster, by overturning the natural order of things.

There were groups of people around the tree in the square and she thought of the one at home in front of the City Hall. It used to be one of the family traditions that on the night they closed for Christmas they would take the children into town to see it. So many of the traditions, so much of the excitement, evaporated with the absence of children, yet even now, for all her apprehension, she felt a momentary wakening of something that was tinged at least with a memory of what she had felt in the past.

‘A good size of a tree,' he said, pointing at what she had already seen.

‘Yes, a good tree.' He could keep the Santa figure climbing their chimney but the only trees would be hers.

‘I hope they've got it well secured – there's a bit of movement in it. You know something, Marion – I've always regretted not going to the City Hall the time Bill Clinton switched on the Christmas tree lights. And Van Morrison played.'

‘I don't remember you saying you wanted to go.'

‘I don't think I did at the time, it was only afterwards I thought it was one of those things it would be nice to say you'd been at. Do you know what I mean?'

‘You don't like Van Morrison.'

‘I know but it just seemed special like a party you didn't go to and afterwards everyone tells you how wonderful it was. Do you understand?'

‘Yes,' she said, her face angled to the city. They were in the Leidseplein already and the bars and restaurants were in full flow, the crowds deeper and more fluid, groups criss-crossing each others' paths and igniting the night with the sharp sparks of their voices. A party to which he never got to go. It was what he probably felt more and more, made acuter as each year passed and with them the sense of opportunities slipping away. But she knew now that she wouldn't let him think that she was the one to blame. He could go to the party if he thought that was what would make him happy. She would open the door for him and bid him go.

There was a tree too in the foyer of the American Hotel and laughter and noise flowed through the open doors of the bar and restaurant. Their room looked out over the Leidseplein but was efficiently sealed off from the noise so when she looked out it felt as if she was watching a film with no sound. They left their bags at the end of the bed and to hide her sudden sense of self-consciousness she walked about as if inspecting the room.

‘Very nice,' she said almost to herself as she scanned its quiet elegance, with everything dressed in cream and brown.

‘Very good. Worth the money. And a nice central location,' he said as if he needed a greater commendation.

Then a silence settled and she knew what they probably both felt was what all couples felt in a hotel room, no matter how long they'd been together – a charged sense of each other and an uncertainty about what had always been taken for granted. She went to the bathroom and surveyed its white-towelled, sanitised cleanliness and looked at herself in the mirror. But it was his face standing in the doorway behind her that she focused on.